The various electrical equipments of machines or vehicles comprise conductor bundles (harnesses) for connecting various apparatus together. The conductors of such bundles, before forming the bundles, have to receive at their tip ends male or female connectors with one or several pins or sockets. Then, the connectors have to be insulated, said insulation being provided advantageously by an over-molding made of a thermoplastic material.
In the present state of the art, the connectors are crimped on the stripped end of the conductors before being over-molded, this crimping operation being carried out at a very quick rate in machines designed to this effect which are used on a large scale.
The conductors provided with their connectors have then to be brought to over-molding machines which inject the plastics material over the portions of the connectors which have to be insulated.
In an injection machine, the thermoplastic material introduced in the mold has to remain normally in said mold until complete solidification. The duration of this solidification is substantially longer than the duration of the crimping operation. This is the reason why it was not hitherto possible to reduce the duration of the working cycle of the over-molding machine and to synchronize it with the working cycle of the crimping machine without considerably slowing down the operatively working frequency of the latter.
The present invention provides a solution to the above mentioned problem and combines the crimping machines with a new over-molding machine for the connectors carrying a new process into effect.